Ghazal written for NaPoWriMo day 21.
Maybe a bit heavy on the inner/outer life stuff and in general, and pale with abstraction, but so be it.
Brought about partially by my daily horoscope, which said, “The day ahead should be a pleasant one, Iself. For the next few days your inner life will interest you more than usual. You may not necessarily become a psychoanalyst, but you will be tempted to seek insight into some of life's more profound motivations. In fact, you become a fervent truth-seeker in all areas of your life. It could be an especially valuable opportunity to learn why you feel so shy and inhibited in public. Perhaps this way you can overcome it.”

20.4.11

“Everything that happens is for the best,”
you said on the way from work last week,
and when I read “I thought of you
with the passion of exile”* this morning
while taking the day's initial piss this
was therefore probably also for the best,
as well as reading my horoscope,
which was asking me if I'd thought
of living in another country, preferably
one where the action is in my field,
instead of going dry in the desert.
Add to that the advertisement for
Catherine Zeta Jones' treatise on a
disorder that is “characterized by
high and low moods” and the
recognition that I also must have
this, except that I used to think
it was fairly normal, it all falls
into place, don't it. Sometimes
I have an inkling that I need to take
life in my own hands instead of
standing by and letting it happen.
But what could I do, about you,
for example, other than exile myself?
“Everything that happens is for
the worst,” it could also be said,
because you can't really tell
the best from the worst, can you,
once it’s happened.

Written for NaPoWriMo day 20 along the lines of “Today’s challenge is to write a poem inspired by something you’ve overheard.”
*I've slightly misquoted this. In The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, a novel from 1918 which I've been reading for the last two weeks, it actually says “I thought of him with the passion of exile.”
And the title, where did that come from? From this:

29.4.10

Elton John says GOP oil leak in trouble for 5 states
Shootings kill census mail blockade of Bullock
Illegal Alabama immigrants say new congress may not tackle
Baby results could be well of sunken drilling rig
Ariz. governor candidate plans to leave over Obama
This is Mexican border city: we speak law
US Navy has encounter with Ryan White
AP source is divorcing James, adopting immigration soon
Iranian jet turned his life around
Banking regulation bill abandons 16 people in English

25.4.10

It’s 7 a.m. on Sunday morning.
It’s the apartment and me.
The first word to hear is yet to come
from somewhere –
most likely through a telephone wire
or wireless or from someone
at a bakery.
But there’s bird song
through the open window,
and those birds
seem to be saying something.

20.3.07

Can this be for real? Xenophobia directed at an ethnic group that doesn't even exist?

According to recent surveys, an increasing number of Hungarians oppose the immigration of Pirese to their country. Never heard of them? The Pirese were invented by a research institute to compare the attitude of Hungarians towards existent minorities - Roma, Germans, Slovaks, Serbs - with their feelings towards a fictitious group. Gusztav Megyesi comments with sarcasm: "Surprisingly, the Pirese are most hated by the left and the prosperous inhabitants of western Hungary. They hate the Pirese mainly because they've never met one. Personal contact would perhaps help to reduce prejudices... Why hasn't a politician come up with the idea of making his career by saving our country from the Pirese? 'I have had all Pirese deported. I am the Hungarian people's best hope. I want to rule,' he could proclaim. And his political opponents wouldn't be able to produce a single Pirese to refute these claims."

(Reported by courrierinternational.com, but also in today's Stuttgarter Nachrichten in an article titled Piresen raus aus Ungarn!)